Saturday, April 2, 2011

the panda sews: zipper pouches

during last week's class, we made a zipper pouch. i used an awesome animal print (tiger! octopus! chicken! elephant! they have eyelashes & they're all hanging out on the same fabric!) and lined it with a brown w/ white polka-dot print. i felt really discombobulated and out-of-sorts during class, and ended up messing up my zipper piece 3 times (we sew a little piece of fabric to the ends of the zipper) AND i measured the fabric wrong for my size zipper. my zipper foot for the machine was a little wonky, so that played a (small) part in my error(s), but 99% of it was my fault.  and when i finally finished it, i realized i had sewn the fabric too close to the zipper and it didn't zip all the way open. boo. definitely not my proudest day. (side note: the next day, i got a migraine, so at least there was a reason i felt like a pyschopath).

l-r: carrie, courtney, katie. zipper pouches for sisters three! 

i decided to not let the day's failures prevent me from trying again, so i made 2 more pouches for my sisters. everything went swimmingly. the purple spotted fabric is carrie's (i lined it with a solid plum purple) and the panda/pig one is courtney's (lined with brown w/ white polka dots).  everything went really well making those two, so i decided to re-do my own animal pouch. more trouble!   (i'm beginning to think that fabric is cursed, but then again, it was 1am at that point). i finally wound up with something i'm proud of.

last night, my pal/classmate julia & i wanted some more practice before today's class, so after eating and playing some ms pac man at her house (they have many arcade video game machines!!!), i made this for my mother-in-law. it's lined with plain navy blue & has a grey zipper:



today's class was spent measuring out all the fabric for a tote bag, which we'll complete next week...

4 comments:

The Blonde Mule said...

So cute! Love the animal fabric! I should take one of these classes. One day....

nicole said...

I love reading about your sewing adventures! I did a project class to make a purse @ JoAnn's this week. It is super cute, but I am not quite sure I could do it on my own again! At least I understand patterns a lot better!

Panda Parables said...

thanks, guys!
nicole - i wanna see your purse! PS: i found that it really helps me if i go home and immediately (try to) re-create what i just did in class. otherwise i forget everything.

Acorn + Archer said...

Love your zipper pouches! I may come to your tote bag class Saturday to finish the one I started in my class. I'm waiting to hear back from Alexia!